Your views in 200 words or less

April 21, 2011 2:34 pm

The arguments over implementation of the Legislature’s proposal to regulate the sale of medical marijuana miss a critical point. There are many citizens out there with a legitimate need for a safe and effective drug to control their pain, nausea or other debilitating conditions.

Yes, legal drugs are available for these ailments. While they can be effective, most are not safe. In fact, some are downright lethal. Witness the recent death of Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputy Shandon Wright from an accidental overdose of oxycodone.

No one ever died from an overdose of marijuana, but many have been made sick by “bad grass.” Unregulated growers can sell moldy product that can be very harmful to patients with allergies.

The key to the proposed legislation is regulation and licensing of growers. As a recent commenter stated (TNT, 4-29), anybody who wants marijuana badly enough will find it, but what are they getting?

State-regulated dispensaries would make it much harder for those without a valid prescription to obtain it, and who would bother to buy from some guy in a parking lot if they could walk in to a well-lit, licensed, regulated facility? The police could then focus their attention on the unauthorized buyers, like the kid next door who just wants to get high.

Feeds

I have studied the emergency room test on marijuana users. What is funny is they put anybody on this list. It didn’t differentiate fault. A pot user could be t-boned and it would still count toward this number. Then there is the fact that Marijuana stays in your system long after the psychoactive effects last and test positive for pot still.

We are now dragging patients who are going through Chemo or living with Crohn’s, MS, even disabled Veterans(for example) into an obnoxious rhetorical war filled with talking points, stereotypes, cultural bias, constitutionality, and oppressive Federal government over something they need to feel better RIGHT NOW and have had the right to request for years…

Go up to someone lying on a couch fighting dry heaves and being too weak to eat anyway from chemo therapy and tell them you won’t provide access to that wonderful plant that allows them to eat, feel strength, be social, do some work, sit up or sleep comfortably…

The marijuana situation is as easily resolved as ending Prohibition — regulate and tax the stuff. If the estimates are anywhere near accurate, we’re talking about one of the biggest cash crops in the state. Imagine the tax revenue. We might generate enough money to pay our teachers a decent wage and provide health care for poor kids. Question is: Are we that smart?

First off I have worked as a health care provider for 22 years. I have worked as a critical care nurse taking care of people in both the emergency and intensive care enviornment. Acute and chronic pain are something that I have to manage in my patients on an almost continuous basis.

I am not against legalizing the medical use of marijuana I’m not personally against recreational use either as long as it isn’t be recreationally used by people in positions in which using pot can cause serious problems, ie like my job. But that is a different case. There is a percentage of the population that gets real relief from the medical use of marijuana and there is enough empirical data that shows that.

So my solution is this. Instead of having ‘pot stores’ owned and regulated by the state dispense medical marijuana like every other single medication in this country, via a licensed, regulated pharmacy. If proponents of medical use of marijuana are serious about real medical use of pot then the place to dispense it is already available. People with a prescription go to the pharmacy and get it filled, just like they would for any other drug. Pharmacies are regulated by both state and federal authorities, are bound by rules governing the packaging, labeling and distribution of prescription drugs. They can be regulated and they can be taxed-if you feel that taxing prescription medications is the right thing to do (which I don’t).

If we aren’t doing this then we are just kidding ourselves.

If marijuana is a drug with health benefits but needs a subscription then it should be treated like a drug and dispensed like one. Any other method is just a simple attempt to back door legalize it for general purpose use. You can call it what you want but medications should be dispensed properly, not just sold without any control.

Darn it, I hate editing on the fly, I make stupid errors that I don’t catch until after I post the message. That’s what I get for posting after my third 12 hour night shift.

Paragraph 2 should read.

I am not against legalizing the medical use of marijuana. I’m not personally against recreational use either as long as it isn’t beING recreationally used by people in positions in which using pot can cause serious problems, ie like my job. But that is a different case. There is a percentage of the population that gets real relief from the medical use of marijuana and there is enough empirical data that shows that.

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